Reviews

‘DRAWING ROOM’, JERWOOD DRAWING PRIZE, JERWOOD SPACE 2011

JERWOOD VISUAL ARTS BLOG

Chris Fite-Wassilak

Fran Richardson’s Drawing Room (2011) is a more serene scene, a detailed charcoal drawing of an empty parlour with heavy, draped doorways out of the carpeted room. Inside the arched doorways is simply blank, as if a way out of the room is an escape from the drawing space itself. But hers perhaps more than any of the others emphasizes that what a large, detailed drawing gives you is that sense of space, a place to enter into that has its own sense of time.

Another trait shared by several intense works is a feeling of the uncanny, such as a suggestive image of a form under a white blanket against a dark background by Liam Allan, and the solid Magritte like volumes of curtain in Fran Richardson’s charcoal Drawing Room.

‘BALLROOM’, LONG & RYLE STAND, ART LONDON 2011

FACONNER

Francesca Barrow

... I am excited by the linear nature of architecture - and rarely is it achieved so beautifully in a classical manner. There is such depth to this artwork as we peer into the nooks and crannies of the building. Yet, there is nothing secretive about this composition other than the wonder about a potential storyline. The artist has beautifully captured the grandeur of the space; hollowing the arches and making weighty the pillars. The stairs have that marble sheen to them and though the background is soft, it does not lose its strength. Indeed, possibly the most brilliant aspect of this piece is its composition as the shapes altogether harmonise perfectly and are portrayed with strong technique.

A new series of atmospheric architectural charcoal drawings by Fran Richardson at Long & Ryle this Spring. The works on show - almost Escher-esque but with the mathsy weirdness replaced by a sense of vague foreboding reminiscent of Turn of the Screw - are inspired by a 1579 book by the mystic St Teresa of Avila.